Five Confessions the Sullivan-Kent-Luthor Clan Made to their Parents
by legendarytobes
Summary: Follows from "family traditions" and The Family 'Verse. Best to read Family Traditions and "Five Times the Sullivan-Kent-Luthor Clan was Out of Control." Clark Kent/Chloe Sullivan/Lex Luthor story about the times their collection of kids had things wearing on their minds.


I. Unforgettable

Lex needed to get used to the idea after eighteen years as a real part of the Kent Cabal that people could drop by into his library at any time of the day or night because distance and time just weren't barriers for people with superspeed, even if certain children rarely used their gifts. Okay, that wasn't true. Lily preferred magic, no matter how hard they'd tried and leaned on Bruce to also get Raven to knock it off. She was as likely to use a spell to teleport as she was to actually speed. Jonathan, though, he was different. Among his four siblings, he was the one who used his abilities the least.

Who'd never been League, much to Clark's confusion. Chloe understood better. After all, she'd retired from Watchtower and stayed away until her own ability to heal had come roaring back.

Still, between Conner, Lily, Moira, and Jonathan, he was the last person Lex to have found apparated into his modest library at the penthouse.

"You know, it's polite to call before you drop by at 4 a.m.," he drawled. "At least I don't have to call your parents. Hell, if you waited until tomorrow I'd be done with late night merger deals and back at the mansion."

Jonathan didn't smile or even roll with the jokes like he sometimes would. "I knew. I know what deals are going on where, you think I wouldn't? My day trades depend on it. I needed to talk to you without Mom and Dad."

Lex sighed and turned on the light. His son might not need light to see but he sure did. It was only years of Luthor composure bred into him by Lionel that kept him from gasping. Jonathan clearly hadn't shaved in a few days and, even if the children didn't need much sleep, they needed some. His son had dark circles under his eyes and his hair was greasy from lack of being washed. "Did someone die?"

Jonathan blinked back at him and it took a while for him to focus on Lex properly. "No, why do you ask?"

"Did you go on a bender?"

He shook his head and sat down at one of Lex's desks. "I'd never do that. You think I'd ever want anyone to know the only thing that could get me to 'relax' is some stupid radioactive rock?"

Lex didn't have the heart to mention magic in front of Jonathan, not when Zatanna's magic had caused so much trouble in all their lives, and it was a sore point for him, that he'd been a spectacular accident of sorts.

"Then why do you look so awful? Did someone threaten you? Is it the government and do I need to buy someone off or was someone looking to get at Fawkes and Superman?"

Jonathan rolled his eyes but, when he spoke, his voice was hollow and drained. "No, it's me."

"You wouldn't hurt someone," Lex said. None of their children were like that, although Clark and he'd both had to explain to Conner a few times over the years that there was a huge difference between protecting the innocent and punishing the guilty without a trial. Lex always served as the living testimony, so to speak, of the slope you fell down as judge, jury, and executioner. "So I don't understand how it's you."

"Did you know that Serena's been having memory problems?"

"Alright, following. She's very young to have dementia. Was she in a car accident? Maybe some head trauma?"

"No, she wasn't. I...at first it was little things, like forgetting her car keys. Then she forgot to turn in a report at work. Then yesterday I mentioned something in conversation about a cousin of hers I met last Christmas and she just looked at me like I was speaking in Kryptonian."

"I'm sorry. I can have her come here. Any doctor she wants, and she's more than welcome to them."

"I took her to Emil. I knocked her out, one of those tiny taps that Dad taught us if we ever had to."

Lex snorted and rubbed his scalp. Oh yes, he remembered those, whether they'd techincally happened to him or not. "Why would you take her to Watchtower if she's human?"

And there was no doubt she was anything but. Jonathan was Clark's son moreso than any of the others, especially with his stubborn insistence on normalcy, and he'd never dated anything but Lana wannabes, completely normal and vain girls with breeding and usually a good family name. The types who never stayed long when even they had questions that Jonathan couldn't answer.

"Because I had this hunch. I...the incidents were connected once I thought about the pattern, once I really noticed it. They got worse, sure, but they all came after the same thing."

"Did you crack her skull on accident repeatedly? I'm having a hard time figuring this out."

"I kissed her," Jonathan said and his voice broke. He looked away and flexed his fingers into fists on both sides of his body. "I'd kiss her and then she'd forget her keys. I...before apparently I wiped out every memory she ever had of her second cousin, we'd been making out for close to an hour."

Lex blinked. His rapid-fire mind usually kept up with anything. Hell, it was the only way to survive in Metropolis. After all, he'd had the League erroneously breathing down his neck and posturing since the Crisis and the Legion of Doom always on him to join. His existence depened on being five steps ahead. "You think kissing her has been erasing her memories?"

"I made a chart when I started noticing and I gave it to Emil. I left a copy on the desk," he said, gesturing to the paper in front of him. "Emil thinks it's more than possible."

"Clark and Chloe cannot do that."

He shrugged, "So what? You're not a telekinetic but Conner is. Who's to say what genetic messes like us can or can't do."

"How in the world did you convince Emil to run these data and not tell your parents."

"The rest of them?" Jonathan hedged. "I said I'd tell you and you were the most likely person to be able to pay for a treatment or find a cure."

"The Fortress-"

"Is crazy and brainswashed Conner and Dad not four years ago. You know it's never been right."

"Then what do you want me to do? I have to tell them. You know I can't keep quiet on this."

"Do you think Zatanna did it? That whatever was in the champagne...they never remembered it, no one remembered those twelve hours, not the six of them. Even Tess can't recreate it via ciruits or something. Is that me too?" Jonathan stobbed then and was quiet, and Lex looked away as his son shook, trying to spare him his pride. Sullivan was nuts for naming him Jonathan as if by bestowing such a moniker she'd willed him to be that stubborn and invested in being a "real man."

After a few minutes, when he was calmer, Lex stepped forward and squeezed his son's shoulder. It was like trying to knead granite but he did his best anyway. "We could start there. I think once we all here about this that Emil and Chloe and Clark would demand the same thing. It's completely possible the magic had farther reaching effects than what's already happened. I honestly don't know much about that. Perhaps Lily and Raven could-"

Jonathan's eyes went red. He wasn't a superhero like the others, never practiced one way or the other, just enough to hide. He lacked control that Conner and his sisters had mastered. Lex couldn't remember the last time he'd seen any of the other three lose it with heat vision. "Lily and Moira never find out. I...Conner's older and if he was going to do this, he would have by now. I don't want to scare them. Besides, they're not part some weird spell or God knows what Zatanna did to all of us, Mom and Dad included. Hell, maybe that's what helped jump start Mom's powers too. We just never talked about it and now...Emil says that the holes in her memory are permanent. I mean, Jesus Christ, I wiped out a whole family member from her brain."

"You said it was a second cousin."

"Look in my eyes and tell me it's no big deal. You had someone wipe your brain for a decade. Tell me that's not a violation of everything you are."

Lex nodded. He and Tess had learned to work together, but they'd never be friends. They'd stolen too much from the other, that was true. "You didn't do that on purpose. It's not like that."

"I ate through her mind all the same!" And Jonathan was gone then, he'd sped across the room to the far window. "It's not fair, you know."

Lex nodded but stayed where he was, scared that his son would run all the way back to New York if he pressed. "It never is. None of us ask to be what we are, but it doesn't make it hurt less."

Jonathan's hands were still balled at his side. "I try the hardest. There really are weeks that go by where I never use my powers, where I can almost forget them. Why do I get this?"

"I don't know but Emil and my doctors will find everything they can. You know your mother, she'll never stop every research angle she can find. There will be answers."

"I know there's more than black, red, blue, green and gemstone Kryptonite. I heard Tess on a call once with Mom. There's another color, isn't there?"

Lex took measured breaths. Jonathan would hear an uptick and he was a Luthor, damn it, beyond petty shows of anxiety. He could bluff with the best of them, had at least once against the Joker. "You misheard."

Jonathan turned and glared at him, his eyes burning russet. "I want to be human. You said you couldn't buy a cure for me and that no magic or Kryptonian science or anything could make me normal. I don't believe that, not competely. With Mom's stuff, I might always stay young and resistant to Green K, but I think I can be less of a freak."

"And if your gift-"

"It's not! How am I ever supposed to date again? Tell me that?"

"You'll figure out the triggers using me and your mother, on the cheek or however you need to do it that's not Oedipal. We heal. When we figure out how your lips trigger it, we turn it off like your speed and strength and vision. It's what even your namesake did with Clark."

"I want it gone, Uncle Lex. Take it. You put that other color none of you talk about on my arm and make me human."

Lex sighed and started to his son. "We can't do that."

There was a breeze before he was a third of the way across the room. Lex pressed his commlink to the Tower. "Sis, he came to me like he promised. Get Superman and Fawkes on the line; we have clean up to do."

When Tess answered him, it was soft and quiet, the human side he rarely heard in the efficient Watchtower. "I thought he might not run off on you. He likes you best of all of us."

"He thinks I'm the most normal. How wrong he is. He was asking about the Gold Kryptonite. No one tells him. Is that understood so you tell your cuddle bear in Emil to keep his mouth shut."

"Could it help?" Tess asked and he wasn't sure how a machine, such as she was, could sound so unsure.

"It could kill him. Unacceptable. Just get Chloe and Clark on the line, now."

II. Fire and Ice

Chloe actually startled.

Twenty-two years of being in Clark's life, and almost six of being his wife, and she actually startled. It made her feel foolish. She'd ruined her not being fazed by superspeed streak. It was just that as she was passing by the never used barn on the way home from a walk in the fields, she hadn't expect Conner to just appear out of nowhere. In fact, he and Megan were both off from duty for the Titans, some long weekend thing in Niagra Falls and she assumed he was going to propose.

They'd never really dated anyone else, but it would be somewhat sweet to see it official. God, she'd been to catechism enough growing up. It wasn't something she'd exactly bought into, but it was adorable that her son of a sort was making it official. God, Lex was going to buy everything out giving him the dream wedding Lex had never gotten. Okay, correction, Lex had massive ceremonies with Desiree, Lana, and Helen as well as the current incarnation with two other women. Somehow, God bless him, any Lex had a genius for falling for homicidal bitches.

Chloe wasn't sure what that said about her that he loved her too. Still, Lex had the lavish ceremonies, they were just marred by plane crashes or poisonings on the honeymoon.

Also nothing he was going to want would match J'onn's expectations. Great. She and Clark could referee for a year, how fun!

Except Conner didn't look quite right. He was weaving back and forth on his feet as he came to rest on a bale of hay in front of her. Years of motherhood (and now even little Lily and Moira were thrown into that mix) had Chloe pressing the back of her hand to his forehead. Not that it meant much. After all, Kryptonians always ran hot.

"Was there Kryptonite in New York?"

Conner shook his head but then scared the ever loving shit out of her by leaning over and puking onto the grass. He stayed like that for a while and she was about to activate her commlink when he pressed her hand against her left arm. "Ugh, don't, it's not like that."

"You're sick. You and Clark are never sick. Either you have Kryptonite poisoning or magic. Which is it?"

"Well it's kind of a miracle of life thing?" he hedged.

Chloe blinked back at him. He wasn't saying what she thought he was. No way he could do that. Hell, they'd only found out about two or so years that Lex could do that. Moira was still just a toddler. There was just no way that Clark and Lex and she were going to be, well, grandparents.

"Okay start from the actual beginning, like I tell the cub reporters."

Conner nodded and wiped at the corners of his mouth. "I wasn't going to propose to Megan. I mean, I think I am now and I'd been thinking about it. I have a ring, but I was always nervous about the right time. It's just this weekend, she and I went to see Emil."

"Seriously, we need to have a talk about discretion and what's important to release to your parents. Tess too."

"Tess would keep my secrets no matter what. It was us against everything before I even met Clark, let alone you and Lex."

Chloe nodded and tried not to be jealous. "I know but we have to know if you're sick. So what's wrong?"

Conner sighed and brought his hands to his abdomen. "I...okay, so you know how Dad and Clark have Moira, right?"

Chloe nodded. "Lex still bitches about the stretch marks that aren't there, by the way, and the nursing. Please don't tell me what I think you're going to tell me."

Her son chewed on his lip and nodded. "Emil says about two months. I...you have got to help me! Clark and Dad and then J'onn are all going to kill me!"

Chloe took deep breaths and started running the angles in her mind. Yes, Lex would kill Conner for getting sloppy with the protection Lex had worked tirelessly to invent for them. Clark would kill Conner because he still sometimes thought of Conner as some teenage kid. J'onn would kill Conner because Megan was his ward and pseudo-niece and he still had no idea they were an item. But, no, the worst would be Bruce. He would not like the idea of such a concentration of power in one place. Conner had joked about it more than once with Megan over, but the sheer strength and range of abilities in a Kryptonian-Martian was unreal. The Dark Knight might be the biggest problem they'd have, might even be best to hide Conner from him until after the child was born.

Chloe trusted Bruce in an apocalypse, but she didn't trust someone who so obviously lorded the Kryptonite he carried over her family. He might take "precautions," non-traceable ones, but ones nevertheless to make sure Megan and Conner's child never came to bee.

"Well, you apparently got sloppy. I am by far the last one to talk on any of this and, frankly, your father and Clark have far less room to talk after Moira, our arrangement or not. I just...you needed to be more careful, Superboy."

Conner frowned, finally ferreting out what Chloe wasn't say. God, that was the Lex in him. Clark was easy to sidestep almost always. Lex couldn't be lied to even with her skill. "Why?"

"Because J'onn being angry isn't the biggest problem you have."

"Well what would be? I defiled his niece like a lot."

She rolled her eyes and rubbed his shoulder. "You didn't. She technically defiled you," she added, touching his stomach, curious in her own way about what was cooking in there. Would it look human at first? Or would it be as J'onn and Megan actually were until it could learn to phase and shift. Oh God, Clark would not do well with that. He respected and liked J'onn alot, but she knew he didn't want a grandchild-shit why were her children idiots again, right Clark genes-with huge red eyes. "Just I don't think that some people are going to like this."

Conner frowned, "But Dad and Clark like Megan. They both think I have better taste than they do."

"Well until me. I was a late bloomer of awesome."

Conner shook his head. "I doubt that. I...Shayera and Bruce?"

Chloe nodded. "Among others. Tess won't tell anyone. She'll delete the records and we'll all speak to Emil, J'onn included if we have to about this."

"If you bring J'onn..."

"...yes, if we had to make him forget, we might do that. I think Emil can see what we do, that some of the League might want other things."

"To make sure she's never born."

Chloe blinked. "I don't understand."

"Martian right? I know it's nuts and she's not big at all but Megan can already read thoughts, I guess that's the Martian part. So a girl. I'm not sure what else or how she'll be when she gets here but..."

"...too smart, too strong."

"I, shit."

She forced her bravest smile. God knows she'd used it enough for Clark as a kid when it was always about Lana drama and his powers or for Lex, later, when it was about getting Clark to understand him and admit his feelings. She could brush it off now even though she wasn't sure how to hide a baby who never should have been from Batman and Hawkgirl among others. She leaned over and hugged him, ignoring the mess on the front of him. Jonathan barfed once when he was three after a binge on rock candy later they found laced from Green K from a local tourist trap. It was being a mother.

"We'll take care of her, I promise."

"But Chlo-"

"It's what I do, now let's get you inside and call Megan. You look like shit."

"God, I feel like it," he said, standing up and leaning on her and she was glad he was no taller than he was.

"Oh this is the fun part, wait until your kid gets knocked up and needs to hide out for over nine months. You'll love that."

III. Lepus

Clark burst into his daughter's room. There was no reason on Earth that she and her chem partner, Sean, needed to study in her room. Lily knew the rules just as well as Moira did. On the farm or in the mansion or penthouse it did not matter. When they had friends of the other sex over, they were in eyesight of their parents the whole time. God knows they'd blown it with Conner.

Okay, not exactly. He was almost thirty and an adult, but Clark still felt that if Lex hadn't encouraged it so hard then Melanie wouldn't exist. Not that he didn't love her and way more than J'onn. He was totally the best grandfather of the mix, she definitely liked him best. Anyway, it was still a mess and Bruce still glared at all of them at meeting and he really needed to let things go after a decade. Still, there were no more surprise grandchildren at the Sullivan-Kent-Luthor house.

Or kids period. Four was killing him already.

"Lillian Jane! What are you doing and where is Sean?"

His daughter bit her lip and he hated that look. Chloe had always given it to him even back in middle school before suggesting something crazy. Lily hesitated a bit longer before asking and pushed an electric green braid behind her ear. No, Clark had no idea why Chloe and Lex allowed this type of self-expression. He found it stupid, but Smallville High allowed it and Chloe'd given him a huge lecture on freedom of speech and self-expression when Lily started dyeing her hair back four years ago as a freshman.

He gave up after the second objection got him an even longer lecture from Lex with dead Greek guys liberally alluded to.

"Lillian, where is he? If I X-ray and find him naked in a closet, I swear to Rao."

She sighed and he noticed the way the curtains ruffled. Huh, she'd be getting the breath sooner than he had. "He's under my bed."

"He's what?" Clark roared pulling up her duvet and frowning back at the small albino bunny blinking back at him. "Is this a joke?"

She shook her head. "Sean said we needed to grab some salt peter for the lab to work and I have some up here in my supplies."

Clark stood and crossed his arms over his chest. The posture worked on Metropolis's most underhanded, why didn't it work on his progeny? "I suppose that it's obvious with your classmate literally wriggling his whiskers at me, but you said you'd stop with magic."

"No, you had Bruce threaten Raven and then Uncle Lex tried. That's not the same. She only teaches me white magic, okay?"

"You turned your classmate into a rabbit. Can you change him back?"

Lily swallowed and he knew right then she couldn't. "Well I only know how to transmogrify, not how to reverse it."

Clark swore under his breath. "Why on Earth would you turn your lab partner into a rodent?"

"He lied about the salt peter," She said and her words were pouring out at a rapid pace, like her mothers, as if she were trying to beat her tears.

Clark reached out and drew her toward him. "Shh go slow."

"He just knew I kept a lot of mineral stuff around and when we were in here he tried to force me to do stuff. I didn't want to break his arms and I was scared to fight back because I didn't want to explain him in traction when I'm supposed to be a normal girl."

Clark nodded. "So you said a spell."

"Uh-huh. I figured Raven or Anna Fortune could help me undo it later. I couldn't explain putting a linebacker in traction. The wrong people would notice us!"

Clark nodded and hugged her tighter, and he knew with Chloe or Lex he'd never dare, that it would be tight enough to shatter human bones. It was nice with his children that he could be himself, not have to be careful. Lex and Chloe would heal but he'd never want to slip with them. "Shh, I didn't know. I was downstairs, you only had to call."

"I was scared," she said, swiping at her eyes. "How stupid is that? I was scared. I've been able to life grandma's old bed over my head since I was two but I couldn't scream. I barely whispered the incantation and it felt so hard. I'm supposed to be a Titan."

"It's different when things scare you, trust me. I've been caught or ambushed before, especially as a kid. You made the right call. This we can fix fast. It wouldn't be as good if you'd crunched something, even if your mom could fix it."

"Well this could take some research and a few hours to fix!"

"But you can't...it's best never to know what the crunch of bone is like, sweetie."

She frowned back at him, limpid green eyes like her mother. "You know."

It wasn't a question.

"I do and that's a story for another day. Let me call Aunt Tess. She'll send both right over."

"Good, I mean I'd have talked to Raven tonight anyway."

Clark frowned and he knew that tone. Hell, he'd heard Chloe and Lex use it often enough over the decades talking about him; he'd just been too dumb or too in denial for years to let himself realize what it meant. "You love Raven."

Lily froze. "She's my best friend, of course I do."

He shook his head and sighed. "You love her the way I love Lex and your mother. I...you're very stupid about this, Lily."

His daughter glared back at him and her eyes weren't red with heat vision but completely black with something else and that terrified him. "Why? You and Uncle Lex-"

"I'm not a hypocrite, well not now. She's a sorceress and magic is bad for us. It's like playing with damn Kryptonite for me."

"I'm resistant to that."

"Not magic. Chloe and I are both susceptible to it, ask your brother."

"I know but-"

"Love Raven, that's fine. But you quit this magic and now, or I'll have John Stewart send her off world with the lanterns for months."

She stood then and he followed suit. God, how big was she? Why had he failed to notice she was as tall as Lois at least. His little Lily was glaring up at him then, her hair sticking up on end from static electricity and her eyes that ungodly black like coal. When she spoke, her voice was wrong, distorted and far too low. "I like this. You couldn't really stop me from still learning."

"I'll find a way," he replied, hands now on hips. "You call Raven and Anna and turn him back. Then you give the books to me."

She smirked back at him and he froze. He knew that look but not from Chloe, not this time, he'd seen it in the mirror all summer as Kal. "Or what? You going to ground me, dad?"

"Or I lock you up in the tower all summer doing chores you are going to hate. You'll listen to me."

"I'm almost eighteen and I can do anything I want, watch me," she said and there was a blast of something hot and green glowing through her fingers and into him. Clark flashed back to Lana and Isobel and, fuck, did he hate witches.

Clark picked himself up from the floor and scooped the bunny back into his arms when he could move again. She'd thrown him half-way across the room with it and the door to her closet was a damn mess. Shaking his head, he pressed his commlink, "Tess...no it's never a good Thursday. Get Diana on the line. Her mom's a priestess right? Because we have a problem."

IV. Guinea Pig

"Daddy, I've done something terrible," Moira said and Lex's blood froze.

"What?" he said, pulling out a chair for her at the breakfast table on Kent Farm.

Chloe and Clark weren't on the planet currently. Some dictator uprising in another dimension. They were supposed to be back in a week, but there was no way for anyone to contact him, not even his dear old sis. God, she'd bitched enough about it on the commlink to him. Oddly, without Clark and Chloe to chat up, she was talking more to him than she had ever before. He was almost getting used to it.

Almost.

Conner was more than grown and off with Megan in New York. They shared a brownstone now with her uncle who was a convenient babysitter for Melanie. Jonathan was at work at the stock exchange, and even Lily was a sophomore in Met U's chemistry program. Lex was sure it was because mixing chemicals was the closest thing she could get to mixing potions; they never learned. That meant that babysitting wasn't as hard as it had once been. He just had to look after Mori who, in general, was the best behaved of all of them.

So this was news to him.

"I need to tell you something, and you have to...don't hate me."

He wanted to hug her close and promise he'd never do that. She was flesh of his flesh in the most literal of senses and the child he never though he'd have. Still, he needed to stay strong in his resolve, never cowtow to her, not like this. He and Clark were not the best at disciplining their brood. God, if Sullivan weren't in on the arrangement, they'd have bred a team of alien monsters spoiled to the gills and ready for world conquest.

What could Lex say?

Lionel had hardly spoiled him. Besides, it was impossible to look into wide, green eyes or Moira's haunting blue ones, so like Julian's, and deny them anything.

"I'll hear you out, but you need to tell me what you've done, Moira. Why is it awful? Is someone hurt? Did you use your power against someone?"

She shook her head so fast it almost blurred, her red curls bouncing everywhere. "Never. I'd never hurt anyone. I just...Jonathan asked me for help."

Lex noddded and narrowed his eyes at her. "Did he tell you what he can do?"

"The stuff Dad does right? I mean all the strength and speed like the rest of us. Am I missing something."

"No," Lex lied.

Lillian and Moira had so far not developed the ability to kiss away memories. Jonathan had gotten to the point by practicing with both him and Chloe (on the cheek thank you) he knew how not to do it, how to avoid activating such a random skill. However, in the years since he'd realized what he could do, what he had done to Serena, he'd never dated again. Even now, the five of them-Clark, Chloe, Lex, Tess, and Emil-weren't sure if it was something that had lined up wrong between Clark and Chloe or if Zatanna's magic had cursed him, so to speak. Hell, even Zatanna after thorough quizzing admitted she rarely knew how things would work with Kryptonians and mutants, that Clark and Chloe were unpredictable at best.

Lex had taken her aside then, had choice words about why she'd ever bothered drugging them to begin with, and continued yelling at her until Emil pulled him off.

"I know he doesn't like it, what we do," Moira continued. "I mean, Conner and Lily have always been so forward with the Titans stuff and they're always out there on the front lines. I help where I can, but I like the tech stuff behind the scenes better."

Of course, someone here had to be like Tess and Chloe. That wasn't all that surprising.

"I know Jonathan...it's okay to be normal too, sweatheart. If you never wanted to use your powers just like your brother, we'd understand."

Okay, he and Chloe would. Clark would be supportive but it hurt him, deep down, how much Jonathan suffered over what Clark had given him. No amount of talks or reassurance from him and Chloe ever shooed that hurt away either.

Moira nodded, even as her voice wobbled. "I like my gifts. I like who I am, but I know Jonathan's so sad and so he asked for me to help because he said you wouldn't."

"We do. He's worked very hard with us at Watchtower to make sure he can control his abilities well enough not to use them." Especially his odd kissing mojo.

"He wanted more."

Lex swore then, long and lividly. So he wasn't father of the year, so sue him. "Moira Lyssandra Luthor, what did you do?"

She swallowed but kept eye contact. Luthors didn't look away, good girl. "He wanted me to make a solution for him of blue meteor rocks, something injectable he could do daily to strip his powers. I knew an old holding from Queen Industries that had some of this from some research."

"Chloe taught you to hack. I advised her not to."

Moira shook her head and sat taller. "I taught me to hack, she helped me refine it. He asked and I created it for him but he's not...he's acting off. I think the dosages are hurting him."

"Off how?"

"He's not sleeping and he's slurring his words sometimes. I think I got the mix wrong."

Lex considered that statement and shook his head. "No, you got it wrong by ever trying any of this. Do you have a medical degree?"

"No."

"Or a degree in nuclear fission and radiation? Maybe advance Xenobiology studies?"

"I'm seventeen."

"And you're a fool, Moira. You did wrong. I helped you with science because we both love it and you were doing stupid things without my guidance. Then you go behind all our backs and drug your brother?" he stood then and started to pace. "What if it's permanent? Did you think about that? What if the first dose was so off it killed him?"

"We can't-"

"Don't be stupid. We can, and we all have at one point or another. Grandpa Lionel had to make a deal with Darkseid to bring me back as I am. Don't be naive. You helped him because you wanted to, because it was a game."

"No, he was so sad and-"

He stopped and leaned over her. "You wanted to see if you could."

Moira swallowed and after a long time answered back. "Yes."

The slap rang out before Lex realized he'd done it. Moira was across the room then, rubbing her cheek, eyes wide with tears. He knew it was the shock that made her speed, not the impact. He was the one with the sharp stabbing eating through his right hand, an indication he'd broken it and that it would remain so for a few days. His healing had never been as flashy as Chloe's. But he'd never...not once with Conner or the others. He'd just been so angry.

Like Lionel.

"Moir, I'm sorry. I'd never-"

She rubbed her cheek that was still unblemished but that wasn't the point. "You're right. I did it not because I love him or even because he was scared and desperate. I did it because I wanted to see what would happen, realized I could jigger things just enough that even Chloe's healing couldn't reject the effects. It was so hard and I did it anyway."

Lex heard the pride there and it scared him badly. He'd know that or his counterpart had; he'd made a clone army because he could. Created a Kryptonite super suit because he could. He'd never thought about if he should.

"Forgive me, I'm so sorry. I never ever want to strike any of you. Mori, I was wrong."

She nodded but now refused to meet his eyes, even as her own filled with tears. "Just help me fix Jonathan. I'm so sorry, Daddy."

"You should be."

"No," she said, gesturing towards his hand. "I didn't just hurt my brother. I broke everything else too, didn't I?"

"Not today, sweetheart, not like this."

V. Electra

"You have to come home, Cyn," Clark said and, while he could do the booming bass, it was hard to keep up the Superman act. He didn't feel like the strongest anything right now, not with the Watchtower in tatters and Chloe and Lex beside themselves wanting their daughter home. "You can't keep running."

She shrugged and slipped out of the bed, nudging the man and woman passed out there until they woke. A few terse words of Portuguese and both were dressing and heading out of the house, back to the streets of Rio. If they'd been star struck by Superman in their room, they hadn't shown it. Of course, judging by how they smlled and the bloodshot looks in their eyes, he was pretty sure they weren't sober either.

He looked away to the floor when he realized all she had on was a neglige that was cut too low over her chest and too short on her legs for him to dare look back at. He'd changed her damn diapers; she was his as much as she was the others' even if she was the late surprise, the odd proof that at least with someone else with a similar power, Lex could actually father a child.

The fact she was born after Moiri finished college was just another complicated bonus in their menagerie of a family.

"Get dressed, now."

She laughed. "Why? Does it make you uncomfortable, Clark?"

"Do the bars here know you're not even eighteen?"

She laughed again and he felt her hands touch his shoulder. Clark jumped back like he'd been scalded and pushed himself into the far corner of the room. From then on, he kept his eyes on her, if only to avoid her touch. She was the smallest of their children, a couple inches shorter than even Chloe. Her hair was kept short and punky like Chloe's they summer she'd come to scream at him in Metropolis. Her eyes were Lex's, grey and stormy. Everything about her as calculating and overwhelming as the two of them at their worst could be. After she'd started into her club kid craziness, that phase he was sure at first she'd grow out of as surely as Lex had, Clark realized at last how much more dangerous she was than the other, even Mori with her intelligence and Lily with her tendency to dabble in darker magics if not watched.

No, she wasn't Kryptonian, had none of his strength, but had all of Chloe and Lex's ruthlessness. Sometimes, he wondered if the parts of Moira that had been coherent enough to willingly use Chloe as a weapon and way to escape Lex's lab and everything purely Lionel had found their way into her.

He was terrified it had, and hated himself for even thinking that.

She stood before him, hip jutted out and he hated it. He knew Lex, knew the man had and could levy sex as a weapon. He was too old and too tired to fall for something done hamfistedly by his child. "Clark, there aren't laws here, not for the right price."

"Of course, Lex mentioned someone hacked into his account."

"A few zeros between family. I needed something for the run. You all don't want me in Metropolis anymore. Am I sullying that good Luthor name. We're all psychos and murderers right? Or is it you can't explain me to the League anymore. Aunt Tess said I was the disappointment right. Jonathan's a chickenshit but I'm the hedonist."

She inched closer and Clark backed up until plaster rained down on him. "Tess's tough love approach wasn't as effective."

More steps and she looked every inch the girl play dress up that she was when she stopped a few feet from him. "You fold, Clark. It's what you always do. When things get hard, you let Mom and Dad handle it, always have. Who figured out how to hide Conner and Melanie until The Batman could be reasoned with? That was Mom. Who got Lily weaned off the dark stuff and back to playing Glenda? Right, Dad." She paused and licked her lips far too long. "When Mori almost poisoned Jonathan into being a vegetable, who figured out the cure, locked themselves in Watchtower for weeks? Right, that time Mom and Dad."

She sidled up to him and Clark stood still as she ground into him. "What do you do, Clark? What exactly are you good at as a parent? Platitudes? Baking pie? What good are you?"

"I help. I...Chloe and Lex are smarter. They can think out the big plans, but I try."

"You indulge and now you want to bring me home?" she purred, running her hand down his chest and Clark caught her hand, squeezing it in warning.

"Stop this."

She looked up at him and batted her eyes. God, how much had she really done sneaking out to clubs. It was comical on her, the desperation with which she tried, but well rehearsed. She was far from his first mark this way. "Why? I'm not yours. We're as related to each other as you are to a kumquat. It's not wrong." She accentuated her point by reaching down with her other hand tracing over his abdomen till he restrained that one too. "Ooh, bondage, kinky."

"You're high. What did you take this time?"

"What didn't I?" she said, laughing and falling into him, going limp in his arms until he had to prop her up. "Clark, you're not my dad and I'm younger than Mom and Dad, more flexible. I know things."

Clark rolled his eyes and tossed her back to the sofa, glad she managed to land on it. "This is just sad, Cyn. I'm calling Tess now. She'll send your other parents and Chloe will help you shower, and you're going to be so embarrassed with you sober up."

She blinked back at him, grey eyes cold, like Lex at the Fortess years ago before he'd brought the whole place down. Well, that Lex had. Clark swallowed a bit when he noticed her hands glowing, they'd bypassed rose and were already gold, bright enough a human would have to squint.

"I'm not. Aunt Tess isn't wrong. I'm not real. I'm not anything. Something that never existed before."

Clark nodded. "Something that can't end. Yeah, she talked to me. God, you think you're the only one? That we're not all scared and confused and have no idea what we're doing. I was fourteen years old and someone with ESP told me I would watch everyone I love die, showed me the damn circle of tombstones. At twenty, your mom woke up from a morgue drawer. You father was put back from pieces by Lionel and Darkseid. We're all scared, all the time, but we have each other."

"That's so sitcom of you," she said. "I don't want that. I want one real answer: what am I?"

"You're our daughter and we love you."

She was up then, stalking over to him and he let her, as long as she stayed as long as he could keep her busy. He'd already activated the tracker with Tess. The javelin would be here soon enough, Conner and J'onn any second.

One again, hands still brilliant white, Cyn looked up at him. "Maybe I don't love any of you, not for doing this to me." She reached out and Clark was on his knees, the pain worse than anything he'd ever felt, nowhere near Kryptonite or even Lily's darkest spells. "Well," she said, leaning down and kissing him and she reeked of alcohol and things Clark couldn't trace. "Maybe you, but not enough to stick around."

She blasted him again and he curled up into a ball, unable to deal with the pain. "If Conner or Megan or anyone come for me, the next time, I'll do worse, Clark. I'll kill them."

He coughed, not sure exactly what she done, but the sting was harsh and eating through him. "Just let us fix it, please Cynthia Lois, just come home."

She smiled and Clark shuddered. He'd seen that look on Lionel in that other world. There was a hiss and he noticed the ring she wore drew back a sheeth and the Green Kryptonite there was free. His veins started popping at the onslaught. She drew near again and kissed him, even as his veins grew black.

"Oh, I mean it, and I'll find some place else. Let Mom and Dad know I'm serious. You know, actually," she said and drove the stone into the skin of his neck and left it there. "Let Conner tell them when he rescues you."

With that, all he remembered was her back as she walked out of the room before he passed out.


End file.
